Garand - Loose Front Hand Guard With a Peculiar(?) Cause... (Long)

[whitebear]

I received my Danish Garand with the VAR barrel (Springfield receiver, February, 1944 manufacture) about a month ago. Family and business factors conspired to prevent me from doing more than a field strip and stock cleaning until this last weekend.

I noticed almost right away that the front handguard was loose - it has between 1/16" - 1/8" front to back play in it.

After detail stripping and cleaning it this weekend, I was reassembling. The front hand guard slipped on and snugged up to the lower band on the front of the rear handguard. I slipped the gas cylinder on, and it slid down to snug up against the front of the front hand guard. So, I figured that the initial looseness in the front handguard was attributable to an assembly problem at the CMP. (Hey- they do LOTS of Garands - it could happen...)

So, I threaded on the gas cylinder lock and spun it down. It would not make the last 1/8th revolution to snug up against the front of the gas cylinder! I had to back it off 7/8s of a turn before it would line up with the gas cylinder so that I could put the gas cylinder plug in.

So, here's my question - is the problem with the barrel (not set properly in the receiver, or not threaded properly for the gas cylinder lock), or with the front hand guard not being long enough?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know!!!

Thanks in advance!

 

[3 gun]

For a service or rack grade rifle, the fit you describe is normal. You need to have some play in the front handguard fit. If you did not, as you shot the rifle and your barrel heated up your point of impact would change.

 

[swampyMO]

whitebear,

What you describe is a normal situation for M1 gas cylinder locks and handguards. The threads on the locks are not "indexed" like the threads on the barrel and receiver must be.

GI armorer practice for an issue rifle is-was to put on the first lock at hand and tighten it as far as it would go. If it did not match up with the gas cylinder at the bottom (6:00) position, then it was backed off as far as necessary to do so, be it 10 degrees or 350 degrees.

For the best in accuracy on the other hand, GI armorers building up Match Grade rifles would search through a supply of locks until they found one that would fit that barrel, bottoming on the threads at between the 5:00 and 8:00 positions (as viewed from the FRONT).

If you don't have a box full of gas cylinder locks handy, then you can sand, mill, or grind the back edge off of the one you have until it bottoms at near the 6:00 position. This will give you the tight fit you desire without having to buy a bunch of locks. Even if you had a handful there is no guarantee any of them would be any better than the one you already have.

By the way, the front handguard is supposed to be a bit loose from front to back. This is designed in. If the front HG is clamped down tight by the gas cylinder bad things can happen. When the rifle heats up during firing the wood can swell and bind and affect accuracy adversely. In some cases the wood can crack and split. To avoid this, leave it loose.

best regards,
Swampy

 

[AZ Jeff]

There are several factors you need to consider when trying to eliminate the rattle. First off, the optimal location for the gas cylinder is NOT necessarily pushed up tight against the front handguard. The optimal location of the gas cylinder is CENTERED over the gas port in the barrel. This can be determined by looking at the location of the square hole in the gas cylinder relative to the gas port in the barrel as you tighten the gas cylinder lock. Doing the adjusting of the gas cylinder lock by sanding (or sorting thru piles of locks), as suggested by other posters, should come AFTER the cylinder is located properly

Once you have the gas cylinder located in reference to the gas port, there should be some clearance between the back of the as cylinder and the front of the handguard. This is necessary to allow for thermal expansion as the rifle is fired.

There are two ways to limit the axial motion of the handguard:
1. Install an o-ring of the diameter of the barrel BEHIND the gas cylinder and in front of the handguard
2. permanently bond the tenon on the rear of the handguard to the lower band on the barrel. (This is the method used when creating a match grade M1.)

Both of these modifications result in a tight front handguard. Be forewarned that, if you choose to use the rifle in the J.C. Garand match competitions, both these mods are illegal by rules for those matches.

Otherwise, have fun!
That all said

 

[whitebear]

Man, I LOVE this place!!

Thanks for all the input, guys! That's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I feel like I need to learn something new everyday, and TFL is often the place to do it!

 

[Ledbetter]

O Rings are right up there with duct tape in my book, but that one never occurred to me. Thanks AZ Jeff.